Well, it's that time of year again. No, not July 4. Not the official beginning of summer. Not even the weekend. I'm talking about the fifteenth annual Del Close Marathon, happening June 28 - June 30 in NYC.

Del Close was a seminal improvisor and comedian who trained some of your favorite comedians - think Amy Poehler, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, John Belushi, and Stephen Colbert. Every year since 1999, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts) have hosted a three-day festival in his honor. This year, it's back and bigger than ever, with six stages and 420 unique shows for your comedy nerd enjoyment. You can grab a wristband at any of the six stages, which will cover all but premium shows (at FIT and SVA theaters). More info on wristbands and tickets can be found at DCM's official website.

As always, this year's lineup features some great teams from around the country (Boston, DC, Chicago, LA, Austin), and around the world (Tokyo! Fucking TOKYO!). In addition, a bunch of television and movie stars who got their starts at the theatre are performing in their natural habitats - Ellie Kemper (The Office), Nick Kroll (The League, Kroll Show), Amy Poehler (SNL, Parks & Recreation), Zach Woods (The Office), Mike Birbiglia (Sleepwalk With Me), Adam Pally (Happy Endings), and Bobby Moynihan (SNL), to name a few.

The Rolling Stones are playing Barclays Center in Brooklyn tonight (did you get a ticket?), and as wished/hoped/rumored, they were in fact added to the much-scalped Hurricane Sandy Benefit happening at Madison Square Garden on 12/12, a show that will be very "widely distributed"...

The producers of "12-12-12" announced today that the concert at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 2012, at 7:30 PM (ET) to aid the victims of Hurricane Sandy, will have unprecedented and historic global distribution, similar to that of the Superbowl, the Academy Awards®, and the Grammys®.

Nearly 2 billion people worldwide will be able to access "12-12-12" on television, radio and the internet. The concert, presented by Chase, will be available to all 114 million television households in the US and to more than 400 million television households outside the country via networks and feeds in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Further elevating this event to its historic levels of distribution is live streaming on the largest online video services in the world, including YouTube, AOL, Yahoo, Hulu, and others. Combined, these video streaming services reach over 1.4 billion monthly unique users worldwide.

In addition, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, with its 239 million monthly listeners and more than 48 million monthly digital uniques, will broadcast the concert live on its radio stations across the country, and will also video stream live on iHeartRadio, Clear Channel's digital radio service, and across the websites and Facebook pages of its 850 stations.

Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis is also one of the many guests appearing on the third season of Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen's IFC show, Portlandia, which returns on January 4 at 10pm ET/PT, prefaced by a pre-premiere episode on December 14 at 10:30pm ET/PT. In addition to J, other guests include Dirty Projectors, Jim Gaffigan, Patton Oswalt, Roseanne Barr, Juliette Lewis, George Wednt and more. You can check out the full list of guests for season three and a video clip of the upcoming season below.

Speaking of Melvins, they're playing a New Year's Eve show in LA at The Alexandria with Redd Kross, who released their first new album since reuniting in 2004 this year. Tickets for the LA show are on sale now.

"On MAY 22nd at 10PM in NYC and LA the UCB THEATER will time travel to the mysterious island from LOST and transform in a fully operational Dharma Station. This one night only event. Will never be seen again. Your favorite stars from LOST (live and via videotape) will perform alongside your favorite comedians on stage in a night of LOST themed Comedy." [Paul Scheer]

Even before comedian Paul Scheer posted that message to his website (hours before the penultimate episode of LOST aired), fans quickly booked the free reservations for both the NYC and LA shows. Many others showed up to wait in the standby line in hopes of getting into Saturday night's show.

The NYC show was hosted by the three-man improv group, Sidecar (Matt Fisher, Alden Ford & Justin Tyler) and featured comedians Samm Levine, Owen Burke, Anthony Atamanuik, Jon Glaser, Seth Herzog, Bobby Moynihan, Kumail Nanjiani, John Gemberling, Gil Ozeri, Jeff Rubins and Pat Cassels. Though no actual LOST cast members were there, the two hour event started with a pre-recorded video message from LOST executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (both recently spotted watching Lost at Knitting Factory) welcoming the crowd to UCB and thanking everyone for supporting the show. Other highlights of the evening included Samm Levine playing a clip of his appearance on LOST as a Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack cashier, John Gemberling and Gil Ozeri in "Crazy Sayid and Crazy Claire's Crazy Island Giveway" and the final sketch of the evening, Bobby Moynihan's video slide-show documenting his extensive collection of LOST memorabilia and various references to LOST that he worked into several episodes of Saturday Night Live.